Recently off the Independence full-ship music charter...a "different" perspective

[Pellaz]

I was on the Indy's Feb. 1st - 5th sailing as part of the 70,000 Tons of Metal cruise, Ft. Lauderdale to Grand Turk and back. The cruise featured 61 bands from all across the globe and cruisers ("Survivors") from 75 different countries.

Each band performs twice, once on the way down and once on the way back. The main pools are drained, decked over and "the world's largest open-air structure at sea" is erected to form the pool-deck stage.

Other concert venues used were the Studio-B ice rink, the Alhambra Theater, and the small Pyramid Lounge; performances began at 10 am on sea-days and ran until 6 am on some occasions.

 

So yeah, it was pretty grueling. I needed a vacation to recover from my "vacation." :)

 

There will be a question-and-answer session after these posts. :D

 

 

Thoughts on the Ship

 

The 70,000 Toms of Metal charter has now used a Freedom-class ship for four years in a row, and the cruise sold out with a waiting list as far back as last October. (The "70,000 Tons" part of the name derives from the Royal ship used for the charter's first five sailings, Majesty of the Seas. The ship is revered to this day by "survivors" from those first few voyages, who liked the smaller ship and atmosphere.)

 

Steward Service: average. Our steward was decent but never replenished our ice-bucket, and we only got 1.5 towel animals during the cruise (one regular size, one very tiny one the last night). He also never replaced the soap or cleaned out the soap-dish in the bathroom. We thought that was odd.

 

We only ate in the MDR twice during the sailing due to time constraints -- it was all open seating and there was no dress code enforced. Service was pretty typical, not too fast but thankfully not too slow. The top floor of the MDR was used for festival and band merchandise sales instead, but the MDR was never particularly busy at any one time. Hours for dinner were 6:30 pm - 10 pm.

 

The Windjammer was.....perplexing. They offered very similar fare for lunch and dinner, but closed down from 5 pm - 7 pm, when many people were showing up hungry. Is that normal?

It seemed to us that they could have easily just closed down one side of the WJ at a time during the changeover so they would always have at least something to offer. It was typically busy, since you could only get something there besides so-so pizza and those sandwiches at the Cafe Promenade.

In fairness, the Windjammer was ALSO open for late-night snacks from midnight til 5 am......til 3 am on the last morning. That was nice.

 

Food Options seemed remarkably lacking for one of the larger ship-classes at sea. For free/included options we only had four: the Windjammer (when it was open), the MDR (when it was open), Sorrento's, which is far from the best pizza at sea, and the finger-sandwiches at the Cafe Promenade, which are pretty good but not that big. This seems scanty for such a large ship and many of my fellow cruisers -- for some of them this was their 9th trip on Royal, thanks to this charter -- lamented the lack of free/included dining choices and the odd hours they were offered.

We DID go to Johnny Rocket's and pay the cover (still $7.95 on this ship) at 6 pm one day because the MDR and WJ were both closed and we were tired of those sandwiches from the Cafe.

Also, the Jade section of the WJ was converted into a "vegan corner" during many meal times.

 

We were bombarded with lots of invites to Chops and Giovanni's Table but resisted the urge to splurge. Most of our fellow cruisers did likewise.

 

We were four friends in a Grand Suite, Room 1568, and it was really nice....BUT we didn't receive any of the suite perks or concierge services you'd get on a regular cruise. (We weren't really expecting them.) Our keys opened the Concierge Lounge but there was never any food or drink provided there. We decided that we will probably opt to get a GS again next year as we really enjoyed the extra room. I'd hate to share a balcony or (shudder) an interior or oceanview with three other people but the GS made it tolerable...at a price only slightly higher than a two-person balcony for this charter.

I DO have to wonder, since all the myriad lights in the room have separate switches, knobs and sliders, why the bathroom light switch is STILL outside the bathroom door?! :D

 

The Wi-Fi -- Voom Surf and Stream, purchased online -- was actually pretty fast...especially considering the nature of the passengers on this music charter: Relatively young, active on social media, and posting lots of photos and video. I was able to set up Advanced Wi-Fi Calling on my phone (an LG V20) before leaving and it worked like a charm onboard, receiving and making phone calls via Wi-Fi with the same quality as on land. I got a lot of looks from people when I took a call in the Windjammer. :)

 

Embarkation and Debarkation were surprisingly inefficient and surprisingly efficient, respectively. For embarkation we were asked to do a few things that I hadn't had to do in Miami back in October: we had to have our photos taken, we had to fill out the medical questionnaire at the kiosk, and we had to wait while the nice check-in lady went to go make our SeaPass cards. Compare to last October, when the cruise line (Carnival) simply used my passport photo on file, had sent the medical questionnaire form to us in advance so we just handed it in, and our room-keys were delivered to our stateroom. The process here for the Indy was much more inefficient.

Debarkation, thanks to the U.S. Customs passport app, was a breeze. We headed down to the gangway a little past our scheduled time, retrieved our luggage, and were through the Customs station (no line for us!) and calling for an Uber within 20 minutes of leaving our stateroom.

 

I'll proffer a few thoughts about our port-stop in the next post. It's not a place Royal visits very often. :)

[mcatmcat]

Thank you for the review, did you see shrimps or lobster during your visit at the WJ?

Thank you

 

 

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[Pellaz]

Thoughts about our one and only port-stop

 

For most cruises of four nights and five days you'd go to two, sometimes three ports, but for the music charter we only had one port stop. This is because bands can only perform while the ship is in international waters, and with 61 bands performing two sets each, plus an All-Star Jam, plus one of the bands performed three sets, there wouldn't be time to fit all 124 performances in. They barely manage now with just one port stop. :)

 

Happily, our port stop was Grand Turk, Turks & Caicos, my favorite cruise port in the world. This was my fifth visit there. :D

 

Grand Turk is a Carnival-built port and it's rare indeed to see a Royal ship make port there; the Independence might be the largest ship ever to make port at GT, and if a larger ship has been there, it would have to be pretty rare. (Maybe MSC Seaside?) The island's population is only about 4,000, so when a cruise ship docks, the population doubles. It's only about 7 miles long.

 

There was a big, thick book with port info and shopping guides in our stateroom, provided by Royal Caribbean, and covering seemingly EVERY port in the world....except Grand Turk. This wasn't surprising, since they don't normally go there, and they provided a one-page broadsheet with info about the port for us separately. (I had to hide a smile.)

 

The island was ravaged by a Hurricane Maria last September when its Category 5 eyewall passed just a dozen miles south of the island and the cruise center, but you would be hard-pressed to notice any damage near the cruise center. The Margaritaville was up and running and blasting hard rock from their PA for our arrival, the pool and swim-up bar looked great, and the other port buildings were completely intact. Down the beach, Jack's Shack was also blasting even heavier music for us, and Topher the dog (the most famous dog in the Caribbean) was happily playing in the surf as he often does.

Further away there were more obvious signs of damage; blue tarps on roofs here and there. Reportedly some areas of Grand Turk only got power back within the last few weeks.

 

Royal only offered a few shore excursions at Grand Turk for us, but some were "artist-accompanied," meaning that some of the bands would be going on an excursion and you could join them.

I was startled not to see the pool cabanas at Margaritaville offered, for example; my family has rented one before.

 

Grand Turk is a great port to enjoy for free and that's exactly what I did. Pool, free loungers and beach are only a few steps away from the cruise pier and I snorkeled out along the safety line, VERY close to the ship. (The line was further out from the beach than I'd ever seen it.) There is a sunken cannon and an anchor in around fifteen feet of water and I saw a fair number of fish in that area where the bottom drops off to over forty feet. I also discovered a short tunnel about twenty feet down that I was pretty sure I could have swum through, but with no-one nearby to "spot" me, I declined. :)

 

Our visit was a good long one.....arrived at 8 am and left at 5 pm. After walking around the cruise center area and noting that there's a new bar and grill, the Beached Whale, on the previously-undeveloped side of the cruise pier near the John Glenn/Friendship 7 Recovery exhibit, I went back onboard at around 3 pm.

 

We apparently left one person behind at Grand Turk, who was able to make his way back to Ft. Lauderdale separately. That is not an easy task, since first you have to fly from Grand Turk to Providenciales (the "big island" of Turks & Caicos) and then take a flight back to the U.S, from there.

 

The lesson, as always: Don't Miss The Boat! :D

 

 

I'll see if I can post a few pics from the cruise here in a bit. Sadly, my photos are in public galleries on Facebook, so they are unreachable from here.

[Pellaz]

Thank you for the review, did you see shrimps or lobster during your visit at the WJ?

Thank you

 

I definitely don't recall lobster. I think they had a shrimp dish (some sort of casserole-type thing) on one night.

The WJ offerings were odd, and I'm truly curious as to what would normally have been offered. I remember that mashed potatoes and gravy were offered every day for lunch and dinner (and late-night snacks I think).

Other offerings included a beef dish, a chicken dish (chicken piccata one night, chicken marsala another night), and there was goulash one night. They had burgers that were dreadful and hot dogs that were okay.

[Pellaz]

Here are a few photos from the cruise.

 

 

They always make a cake for us, on display at the Windjammer entrance during embarkation.

Last year there was also an ice-sculpture, but not in 2018.

 

 

 

 

If you know the layout of the Independence's main pool deck, this shot will give you an idea of the enormous amount of work that goes into draining the pools, decking them over, constructing the stage gantries, etc. Taken during the belly-flop contest in the Solarium pool, which is being aired on the screen.

 

 

 

 

Showing the huge scale of the pool-deck stage. All of the components and decking had to be lifted up and over the side of the ship by a giant crane. The logistics involved are awe-inspiring.

 

 

Another shot of the pool deck stage. Those annoying orange columns might be getting trimmed down when the Independence goes into drydock in April. We can only hope.

The band on stage here is Dark Tranquillity, from Sweden.

 

 

This is a view of the same show, from the side. The hot tubs are quite close to the stage and the festival organizers craftily included a Plexiglas wall between the hot tubs and the stage, for obvious reasons. Safety first! Watching a show from a hot tub is not something you can do at your normal everyday concert venue. )

[Pellaz]

And a few more.....

 

 

 

Here is the Indy as seen from the less-developed beach, right by the cruise pier. She's a VERY big ship to dock at Grand Turk, likely one of the largest to make port there ever.

 

 

 

And here's the Indy as seen from the beach at Margaritaville; those are the tops of beach umbrellas in the foreground at bottom right. If you rotated the ship parallel to the beach, the aft end would reach almost all the way to Jack's Shack.

Note: there is good snorkeling out by that pole and along the safety rope where the depth deepens from 15 to around 40 feet.

 

 

This is the Friendship 7 display at Grand Turk. After John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth, his capsule recovery after reentry took place at Grand Turk. There are several other exhibits here as well.

 

Meanwhile, back on board after our visit to Grand Turk, one of my favorite places in the world.....

 

 

This is Scotland's Alestorm performing on the pool deck stage. They brought that giant inflatable duck themselves and the audience loved batting it around. The duck will later meet a violent demise in the Alhambra Theater.

 

 

This was taken just after the Quebec, Canada band Aeternam finished their set. No, that's not sunset, it's SUNRISE. Their 5:15 AM show ended at 6:08 AM after getting to play "one more song." They were brilliant. (And yes, the schedule for shows can sometimes be as brutal as the music can be. :) )

[Pellaz]

And finally, a few more.

 

 

 

This is the band Alestorm performing in the Alhambra Theater. Other venues included the Studio-B ice rink stage and the Pyramid Lounge, which has low ceilings and no way to elevate the stage.

The duck in this photo is about to get deployed back into the crowd, where it will die a horrible death from puncturing about 3 minutes later. Sic transit gloria duckie.

 

Our cabin steward gave us the world's smallest towel animal during the last day. I've never seen a small one like this. We only got 2 (well, okay, 1.5) towel critters during this voyage and many of our fellow cruisers didn't get any at all.

 

We DID notice that the hallway carpets on the Independence are positively filthy. This was taken on Deck 10 just outside our stateroom, a Grand Suite, and you can clearly see the "tire-tracks" from people's feet up and down the corridor and reaching to the each doorway. One hopes all the carpet will be replaced when the ship drydocks in April.

 

Again, feel free to ask any questions you'd like. :)

[Clarea]

... The Windjammer was.....perplexing. They offered very similar fare for lunch and dinner, but closed down from 5 pm - 7 pm, when many people were showing up hungry. Is that normal?

It seemed to us that they could have easily just closed down one side of the WJ at a time during the changeover so they would always have at least something to offer. It was typically busy, since you could only get something there besides so-so pizza and those sandwiches at the Cafe Promenade.

In fairness, the Windjammer was ALSO open for late-night snacks from midnight til 5 am......til 3 am on the last morning. That was nice. ...

These Windjammer hours must have been arranged specifically for the charter, it's not normal for WJ to be closed from 5pm to 7pm.

[Pellaz]

A few other notes about the cruise.....

 

During the first night, we detoured and made an emergency stop in Nassau to drop off a passenger who had (reportedly) ruptured or burst her appendix. Very quickly in and out; I didn't hear about it until the following morning.

 

Also, the ship rocked continuously for much of the voyage. This didn't appear to be related to any high seas, but to long-period swells. I'd speculate that the fin stabilizers were not deployed, either for speed or fuel concerns.

 

These Windjammer hours must have been arranged specifically for the charter, it's not normal for WJ to be closed from 5pm to 7pm.

 

Whew, thanks for that. We were really beginning to wonder.

 

Maybe they closed it at an earlier time to make up for their added hours for late-night snacks? I just wish they could have kept one side open during the transitions between meals. It's not as if the food offerings were significantly different between lunch, dinner and "late night snacks."

 

Regardless.....if I had a buck for every person who came tripping joyously around that corner on Deck 11 between 5 and 7 pm only to find the WJ closed, I could have paid off the cruise. :)

[WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot]

Man, that sounds like one helluva cruise!!!

[VPIcruiser]

Thanks for sharing your review! It is fun to see one of the charters.

[John&LaLa]

Thanks for sharing your review! It is fun to see one of the charters.

I'm waiting for a Lifestyle charter review. 😉

 

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[John&LaLa]

OP, was there any priority program in place for the stage hot tubs? Any Pinnacles onboard?

 

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[Clarea]

I'm waiting for a Lifestyle charter review. 😉

Periscope?

[Pellaz]

Oh, I remembered something else that was jarring: for muster drill, they were actually checking people off on a paper list. :o

I thought that was pretty quaint.

 

 

Man, that sounds like one helluva cruise!!!

 

It really is. Nearly all the bands are out wandering and accessible, and with 61 bands onboard, that's a significant percentage of the cruise right there. All bands are scheduled for a meet'n'greet session (no extra charge) and there are free clinics (guitar, drums, etc.) held as well. You never know who you'll run into; I spent some time in one of the cantilevered hot tubs with one of my favorite bands, by complete random chance.

 

While it will all sound like noise to someone not familiar with the metal music "scene," almost every genre of metal is represented to some extent, so it's quite a diverse lineup.

Every band plays two sets, one show "on the way down" and one show "on the way up," and the schedule is designed such that no two bands will ever play at the same time twice, so you're guaranteed to catch your favorite two bands, at least.

 

I'd estimate the percentage of Americans onboard to be about 15%, then quite a few Canadians and Germans, then the rest of Europe, Central and South America, and even some folks from Australia, New Zealand and China. Like the lineup, the audience is quite diverse.

 

Thanks for sharing your review! It is fun to see one of the charters.

 

The Indy is sailing in two days on the Rock Legends Cruise charter, and it's somewhat similar, although they only have 24 bands. Granted, many of the band names will be more familiar in the mainstream...Bad Company, Uriah Heep, Blue Oyster Cult (who I know pretty well). But, the crew I spoke to seemed to agree that we were a more "fun" group. :halo:

[Pellaz]

OP, was there any priority program in place for the stage hot tubs?

No, although one of them is unofficially designated as the "Canadian" hot tub, everyone was welcomed, including me. :D

 

The hot-tub directly out in front of the stage gets....pretty wild. :evilsmile::cool:

 

Any Pinnacles onboard?

If so, they were sorely disappointed. No perks on the cruise. The Concierge had a VERY easy five days off. As did everyone involved with the "usual" production shows. :)

The Diamond Lounge was, I believe, converted into the festival's production office.

 

There ARE actually quite a few Platinums aboard nowadays, since this was the 9th sailing and the long-timers will have accrued 45 days at sea...more for those who, like us, sailed in a suite.

[mcatmcat]

I definitely don't recall lobster. I think they had a shrimp dish (some sort of casserole-type thing) on one night.

The WJ offerings were odd, and I'm truly curious as to what would normally have been offered. I remember that mashed potatoes and gravy were offered every day for lunch and dinner (and late-night snacks I think).

Other offerings included a beef dish, a chicken dish (chicken piccata one night, chicken marsala another night), and there was goulash one night. They had burgers that were dreadful and hot dogs that were okay.

 

 

 

Thank you

 

 

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